


From the Fiery Noon and Eve's One Star

by theaberrantwritergirl



Category: Reylo - Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Children, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Blood and Violence, Breeding Kink, Dark, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fallout meets The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games, Genetic Engineering, Here lies One Whose Name was writ in REYLO, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theaberrantwritergirl/pseuds/theaberrantwritergirl
Summary: The world did indeed end in fire. And we inherited its charred remains.In a post-apocalyptic world, nineteen-year-old Rey has always thought she was anOther, someone infertile and immune to the hormones of Alphas and Omegas. That all changes one morning when Rey discovers a lost boy named Bee and Kylo Ren descends on Jakku with his army of troopers.And when he sets his attention on her, Rey discovers just how very wrong she is.Title fromHyperionby John Keats.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 33
Kudos: 201
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems





	1. Hyperion

**Author's Note:**

> _Deep in the shady sadness of a vale  
>  Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,  
> Far **from the fiery noon, and eve's one star** ,  
> Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,  
> Still as the silence round about his lair;  
> —[Hyperion](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44473/hyperion)_ by John Keats
> 
>   
> **Warning:** Depictions of violence. Be aware of the tags and verbal warnings before each chapter. Reader discretion is advised. 

_The world did indeed end in fire._

_And we inherited its charred remains._

Rey thinks of this when she dreams about _him_ for the very first time. At eight years old when 903 days have passed since her parents abandoned her at the steps of a breeding house. 

_Darkness. Cold._ The dream always begins the same. _Rain and fire. Iron on her tongue, blood trickling down her neck._ _A chuckle. Warmth against her lips, sucking. Breath-light fingertips._ His body and face drips in black. _That_ voice. _Rey… Rey…_

The thought changes as she matures. At first, it’s bitter and broken—a lament to the scorching desert and endless sandstorms. Then it becomes comfort. White noise to drown out the darkness of her dreams, of his voice, the days that bleed into years. She repeats it in her mind like a song as she dishes out rations or helps the women prepare for another cycle. _The world did indeed end in fire._ “Rey! Where are my stimulants?” _And we inherited its charred remains._ “Rey! The sheets are dirty!” As she etches tally marks into her wooden doll each passing day and falls asleep next to the other girls that will one day become wombs for the First Order or thrown out like trash if they are deemed _Other._

And today, she’s reminded of it again when she wakes up with her head pounding, night dress soaked through. She has always believed she was an Other, someone immune to the intense hormones that plague the Alphas and Omegas in Jakku. Infertile. Plutt, the breeding house overseer, said so himself, calling her useless—a dirty scavenger fit for an early grave. “If you don’t breed, you don’t eat! No cycle, no rations.” In one more year when she’s twenty, if she hasn’t presented yet, she’ll be thrown out from the breeding house, left on the streets of Jakku. She’s already halfway there—Plutt recently moved her to a section of the house for _Others._ At twenty, it is legal to sell Others to pleasure houses or into slavery or to be given to the government as fodder for the never-ending war raged by the Supreme Leader. Twenty is the limit for presenting. 

At twenty, if she hasn’t presented, Rey plans to escape.

But the headaches and night sweats are becoming more frequent. Her dreams more visceral and dark. His voice hums sweetly in her brain, getting stronger, calling to her— _Rey… I’ll come back for you sweetheart, I promise._ Is this what an Omega experiences before a change? The other Omegas, who have already presented, didn’t mention any of _this._ The war. The blood. The pain that courses through veins and tissue, flushing her tanned skin red. They didn’t mention _him._

Rey dresses and tells no one, sneaks out to scavenge in the Pits before anyone is awake. The sun slowly peaks up behind the dunes, bathing the sand in orange light. She digs up rusted arms and broken levers—leftovers before the fallout, the bombs that annihilated the Before. When Rey can get away, she devours books about the Before at the knowledge house, electronically printed on old tablets.

_Bang!_

Rey jumps up, staff in defense, turning around. _Bang!_ Something hitting metal. It’s coming from near an old sandrunner buried halfway in the ground. She advances. Closer. Closer. A soft sound, broken and raspy. It’s crying. Something is crying. 

Blond hair. A dirty face, crimson plastered to skin. It’s a boy—a little boy probably no more than seven covered in dirt and dried blood. 

Rey blinks a few times, feels her eyes grow so wide they hurt. Occasionally, runaways take residence here, but none as young as him. Children, especially aberrant children, are looked after by the First Order at any cost.

When he notices her, he darts to the right. Rey catches his arm. 

“Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Please!”

She notices a thin, filthy bedroll, a few rations, and a toppled water canteen underneath the covered shell of the sandrunner.

“Have you been living here?” 

The boy cries more. 

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Are you out here all alone?”

He nods wretchedly. 

“Where are your parents?”

That’s when she sees the small symbol hanging on a chain around his neck—the three points resembling a half moon with steeples. A starbird taking flight. 

Rey jumps away. “Where did you get that?”

“Are you going to turn me in?” he sobs, hands bawled against his eyes. “I can help you. I swear it. I can carry water an-and make rations.”

“You’re with the Resistance? What are you doing out here? There isn’t a Resistance settlement for perhaps 200 miles.”

Sirens scream. Down, from the settlement. The sound that chases her in dark dreams. Out here, she can hear it faintly: _Attention citizens of Settlement 66. Your Supreme Leader demands your kind consideration._

“They’re here,” she whispers incredulously. “They’re not expected for another turn of the moon.” 

She takes out her makeshift binoculars. White, crisp uniforms and pre-war laser guns fill the glass. Probably three miles from the settlement. The First Order. 

Sometimes they come to deliver supplies and trade. Other times they come pounding on doors, taking children away from their mothers, or putting babies into the bellies of girls barely through their first heat or menstruation. Babies ripe for harvesting when the Supreme Leader demands more soldiers. And somehow, he always demands _more. More, more, more._

“You’re safe,” she whispers, shaking his water canteen. Empty—barely drops left. His rations are old and stale, his head is bruised, his skin sunburned and cracked. He won’t last more than another day out here, and she can’t sneak away to bring him supplies with the First Order buzzing around the town like desert flies. But he’s just a kid. He’ll die if she leaves him.

“What’s your name?”

Terror flashes across his face, but it fades in an instant. He squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw. “Bee. P-P-Poe gave it to me. He said he’d come back for me.”

“Well, I don’t know who Poe is, but… I’m Rey. My mother gave it to me.” She looks off into the distance. “She’ll be back someday, like I’m sure your parents will be.” Her gaze moves back to Bee. “Now listen to me, you can’t stay here. Troopers will scour this place for runaways. I can hide you. But I need to take this.” She fiddles with the charm on his neck. “This is illegal. If they find you with this… they’ll immediately put you into a concentration camp for re-education. Do you understand?”

Bee nods, eyes glistening. “Poe gave it to me.”

“It’s alright. Don’t cry. I’ll bury it right here, and we can come back for it when they’re gone. Okay?”

Bee nods again. 

It’s not a far ride to the settlement; trying to stay hidden behind the dunes is the difficult part. Bee clings tightly to her back, sniffling.

Her stomach churns, core filling with heat, wetness slipping down her thighs. A part of her knows that the simultaneous appearance of the boy and the troopers is no coincidence. She looks back at him—so young, so naive, so much like herself at that age—praying for her parents to come back. What could the First Order want with a boy no more than seven?

 _The world ended in fire._ She pulls her cowl over her mouth and pushes the sandrunner harder. _But why couldn’t it have been this one?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Thoughts, praise, constructive criticism? Leave a comment below or contact/follow me on Tumblr: [theaberrantwritergirl](https://theaberrantwritergirl.tumblr.com/)
> 
> As always, please be sure you read the tags and written warnings before each chapter. 
> 
> I would love to hear what you think!


	2. The Familiar Visiting of One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __  
> Gloved hands envelop her wrists. Rey struggles against them, the instinct immediate. In front of her, troopers scoop up Bee; he thrashes and screams. Finn shouts his name but keeps running. The world moves slowly, noise far away and so close all at once. Fluid drips down Rey’s thighs, her blood echoing in sync with the guns.
> 
> _“That’s her.” Plutt. He spins in orange and yellow. The stars—she can’t see the stars; they drown in smoke._  
>   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire  
>  Still sat, still snuff'd the incense, teeming up  
> From man to the sun's God; yet unsecure:  
> For as among us mortals omens drear  
> Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he—  
> Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screech,  
>  **Or the familiar visiting of one**  
>  —[Hyperion](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44473/hyperion)_ by John Keats
> 
>   
> **Warning:** Depictions of violence, blood, war, and the dead.

When Rey maneuvers her makeshift sandrunner to the back of the breeding house, the First Order has advanced. A black oval giant in the sky grows larger—well armored and reminiscent of the bombs that destroyed the Before in pictures. The site does something strange to her, makes her head throb and her eyes twitch. She knows of this ship; traveling merchants have told of its size and power. Supreme Leader Snoke built it for his apprentice, his right hand. The missile launchers are capable of destroying the entire world thrice over, the black walls like floating steel but made up of a substance stronger than any metal on Earth. 

What could warrant a visit like _this?_ It’s a visit from nearly from the capital city, Exegol, itself.

Rey unloads her small heist from the morning as fast as she can, but the pounding in her head makes her dizzy, causes her to clutch the side of the building for support. 

Bee waits on the sand, kicking his feet. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She passes him some water, which he gulps down in three seconds. “Let’s get you a bath and clean clothes. But you must be quiet. Do you understand?”

The women are distracted—frantic—cleaning floors and mending dresses. Donning hairstyles and outfits fit for a pleasure house. Taking stimulants to force a heat that was scheduled to come _next_ moon, not this one. Everything depends on their ability to produce healthy Alpha boys and Omega girls for the Supreme Leader. It’s a female orphan’s only job in this world. An Other like Rey is useless, nothing, fit for an early grave as Plutt says.

Rey sneaks Bee into an unoccupied corner of the bathing area and goes to work on the dirt and dried blood. She grabs a cloth and scrubs his face, trying to ignore her pounding head. She lifts up his hair, revealing a red mark and—

Her vision blurs, turns to night. _An endless pit—a void. “Rey.” A man advances. As dark as a desert night without stars. Fingers on her cheek, leather-covered and cold. “You.” His voice is so familiar, so inviting, so warm—_

“Leave me alone!”

Her eyes snap open; she gasps for air. Her outburst echoes off the tile walls. Bee looks at her with concern, little brown eyes watchful, but she ignores him, resuming her task at a rushed pace. She dries him off and gives him clothes that belong to one of the women’s daughters. 

“Bringing a kid into my house without my permission, huh, girl?” 

_Plutt._

She stands, blocking Bee from sight. “He’s trying to find his parents.” _Parents_ might be a lie since all Bee talks about is a person named Poe, but out here, with people dying by forty from radiation, starvation, or illness, having one caretaker is enough to be considered _parents_ . But Plutt raised her, was her only parental figure besides the older women of the house, and she would never, ever, not in a million fiery Jakku suns, consider him her _father._

Plutt chuckles, grasps his large, protruding belly. At thirty-eight, he’s approaching that forty life expectancy date bit by bit. “What do you think Jakku is? Exegol? Everyone is accounted for here. Where did you find him?”

“Out scavenging. I’ll share my rations with him so you don’t have another mouth to feed. I think he’s from a neighboring settlement. Maybe a merchant’s son, lost during a visit sometime last week.”

“Is he an Alpha?” Plutt moves closer to Bee, but Rey stands in the way. “He have a gland? The First Order pays high for Alpha boys. Good soldiers. Good breeding stallions. Conditionable while young.”

Rey can’t look at him. It’s how all overseers talk about children—like walking, breathing money. 

“But I guess not everyone that has a gland presents. Your mother said you would make me a fortune one day when I had you bred. So far… a waste of rations.”

Rey pulls her threadbare tunic further over her neck to cover the tiny, red, moon-shaped mark. “So sorry to disappoint. If you’d excuse me.” She tries to push past him, but he blocks the exit with his large frame.

“I won’t send you away next year if you give the boy to me.”

Rey freezes. The walls of the breeding house are all she’s ever known. Others aren’t forced to have sex or pick up a gun and die in someone else’s war here. It’s not perfect or easy, but it’s comfortable. Shelter from the scorching desert sun and sand storms that plague Jakku. 

“He’s not for sale,” she finally says and pushes past him, holding Bee’s hand.

“No? How about I… sweeten the deal?”

She freezes again.

“I’ll give you five hundred portions if you give him to me.”

Five. Hundred. Portions. It would be enough to feed herself for over a year and then some. She wouldn’t have to scavenge for over _a year._

“You mean it?” She turns around, advances. “If I give him to you… 500 portions? This isn’t some kind of trick?”

Plutt’s large lips curl into a smile. “Come to my office. Let’s work out a trade. The scrap you found today is worth a few portions, as well.”

Rey does as he says, Bee wide-eyed and defiant as she drags him to Plutt’s room down the hall. “Please! I’ll do whatever you want! Please!” 

Her heart lurches at the sound of his cries, but she ignores them. _500 portions._ Safety. Surely one child is worth that? 

Plutt lays the packets out on his beaten, wooden desk, the powder showing a sickly green through the clear wrapping. It covers the desk in an enormous pile, overfull and spilling at the edges. 

“All yours.”

“I’ll need to make a few trips.” Eagerly, Rey stuffs the portions into her pockets, her hands, anything open and ready for gathering. But Bee’s wails fill the room. Her heart thuds faster, hands freezing on the next batch of packets.

“What’s the matter, girl? It’s a fair trade.”

“I…” She looks down at Bee, at his flushed, wet cheeks and the mark on his neck. How her parents had left her. “I can’t do it. Thank you for your offer, but I can’t accept.”

“What?!”

She digs into her pockets and places the collected portions back on the desk. “He’s a boy. He shouldn’t be sold to the First Order. I need to find his family.”

“He can’t stay here. I won’t allow it.”

“I’ll take him away. Come on, Bee. You’re safe.”

Bee tentatively takes her hand, sniffling, unsure. 

“You do know, girl…” Plutt says to her back. “The First Order is looking for a runaway Alpha child from one of their testing programs—a very special one, indeed. But you couldn’t know that. They only made it known to people of importance, and you have no power here, do you, _Other?”_

Her nostrils flare. “Turn me in if you want. You’re not getting him.”

* * *

Rey knows of only one place to go—the brothel. 

At the dressing room window, Rey knocks, startling Jessika, one of the courtesans and an old friend. She is also an orphan, given to the breeding house when her parents were lost in the desert while scavenging. She lived there until she turned twenty and was deemed _Other,_ and Plutt, always thinking about money over people, sold her to the brothel in a swift, mass trade to unload his stock of infertile women. 

“What have you done?” she asks when Rey shows up with Bee at the backdoor and explains. Jessika’s makeup has been painstakingly applied, yellow glitter on the rim of her eyelashes, charcoal on her lids—prepared for what is to come. By the end of the night, she’ll take as many men as time and money allows, filling her up until nothing remains and she bleeds for days. 

Jessika almost slams the door in their face, but Rey pleads with her, makes her take notice of Bee’s split-open forehead and tears. “We have nowhere else to go. Plutt will send troopers as soon as he can, I know it. Please.”

Sighing, she sneaks them into a crawl space meant for storage, her lacey, airy dress trailing across the floor. Fabric from Exegol—nothing like it exists in Jakku. “If they find you, I know nothing and I can’t help.” She leaves briefly and comes back with rations, water, and scratchy blankets. 

The door shuts; the light fades to darkness. Rey turns on her solar-powered emergency light—small but efficient, scavenged a few years ago. “They _are_ looking for you, aren’t they?”

Bee doesn’t deny it. “Poe said he would get them off our trail. And he’d—” His eyes fill with tears “—come back for me.” Crying, he tells Rey how Poe stole him from the First Order when he had been playing outside with some of the other children. Their daily exercise, an hour a day—“to maintain optimal health.” A big phrase for a seven-year-old, but Bee doesn’t stutter. Rey knows of these programs; The First Order buys women from the breeding houses across the country each year and uses them as wombs for their experiments. They condemn these reports, saying it’s propaganda and that the women—and occasionally men—they buy will be taken care of and used only for light genetic testing, to learn how to make the human race more resilient to radiation. Nevertheless, every year, their scientists travel hundreds of miles to Jakku to perform genetic testing. “Optimal genetic profile,” one of them said during a collection a few years ago, her glassy, grey eyes staring at the teenager they’d tested—Rina, Rey’s friend, only fourteen. Rina didn’t cry as they marched her toward their ship, didn’t wave when she disappeared behind the steel doors. She would be taken care of, fed and clothed better than any common breeding house in the United Nation. Rey never saw her again. 

Rey presses Bee for information about his life in the testing facility. They’re given a combination of numbers and letters, no names. He was BB8—Block BB, Subject 8. For being so young, he’s reasonably observant. In the Before, he would be considered _mature,_ but here, the reason for the age in his eyes is unthinkable. 

The Resistance, Poe, staged a coup and captured him—they were on their way to some base, but Bee isn’t sure. “He said we would be safe. Safe and sound.” He snuggles into the blanket and hugs his legs to his chest. “Then they came after us. And… I don’t know…” He sniffles. “He didn’t come back. He said he’d come back.” 

Rey’s heart lurches, and without thinking, she brings him to her chest, whispering comforts against his blond hair. The embrace is awkward—she holds him at a tentative length, hands touching, but not _feeling._ Rey was never hugged as a child at the breeding house. Sometimes she dreamed of her mother’s arms, memories that were buried with each unrelenting sandstorm that rained on Jakku. Every year, praying her parents would come back until her prayers dried like her tears. “You’ve got to stop crying,” she tells Bee. “It won’t change what is to come. I’m sure Poe will be back, and if he doesn’t…” She grits her teeth. “You have me. I won’t let them take you. I promise.”

* * *

Footsteps and music pound on the rotting floorboards above. Rey puts her ear to the ceiling to listen, careful not to wake Bee sleeping in her arms. 

Her mark stings, pulsing, like a scorching sunburn. She grabs her neck, resists the urge to cry out. Red coats her vision. _Burning light, deep darkness._ The sensation has never been this strong. It makes her stomach churn and her mouth fill with saliva. 

When the footsteps die out, she carefully lifts the trapdoor and crawls out. Cracking the storage room door, she makes out troopers and courtesans, in every corner, in the throes. It takes her a few scans to spot Jessika, but she does—near a small bed, a man with dirty brown hair and a pinched face having his way with her. He has her pinned to the bed, thrusting into her from behind. Rey looks away. If she doesn’t get Bee out of here, if she doesn’t escape, this might be them one day.

The brothel crawls with troopers, but whether it be the cactus wine, the loud music, or the atmosphere of pleasure, they don’t notice as Rey creeps to the backdoor for air. She falls to her knees and retches into the sand; the throbbing increases, making her dizzy. Fluid coats her pants, and she brings a hand to it—sticky and slimy like rations left out too long in the sun. What _is_ this? The stars, such faint, little lights, hover above her. How many nights had she spent watching them with her mother?

“You,” a voice says to the left in the alleyway. “Get back inside!”

“Sorry, just needed some fresh air,” she chokes out.

“Get back inside! Go!”

Rey hears it, then—the sounds of laser guns firing in all directions. She ducks to the ground, lands in her own vomit. 

_Boom!_ Jakku flashes in brilliant orange. Dust flies through the dry air. 

Someone grabs her shoulder. A man with dark skin. His deep brown eyes plead with hers, soft and inviting; in them, Rey can see years of pain, triumph. And something more—his mark, the scent. She wants to lie down, let his teeth sink into her neck. 

He holds out a calloused hand. “We have to get you out of here.”

“What—” 

Another explosion. They both duck. 

“Come on!” He grabs her arms, starting to sprint. “We have to evacuate!”

 _Bee,_ she thinks desperately, untangling herself from his grip. “I have to go back! I can’t leave him!”

“Who?! We have to go!”

She races into the chaos of the brothel. Troopers have donned their white, crisp armor once more; the women scream, take cover. Rey searches for Jessika but doesn’t find her and dives straight for the storage room. 

Bee is huddled into the right corner of the hole, sobbing with force. “Where did you go?”

“There’s no time,” she shouts over the noise, slinging him onto her back. “I don’t know what’s happened, but we have to move.”

Out through the backdoor, Rey finds the man again. There’s no time to question about who he’s loyal to or what his intentions are. Around them, Jakku blazes.

“Finn!” Bee shouts, climbing off Rey’s back and jumping into his arms. 

“BB8—Bee!” 

“Where’s Poe?” 

“He’s okay! I thought I would never see you again. I got word—Poe said he had to drop you off? You guys were chased?”

Bee looks to Rey, smiling. “Rey found me. She’s one of us.”

“Thank you,” Finn says to Rey. His grin widens, softening his eyes. More gun fire. “Let’s go.”

Vision blurring, Rey follows them through fallen buildings and rubble, neck throbbing more and more with each step. “Where are we going?!”

“The Resistance—they have a ship just over here,” Finn shouts back. “Liberating Jakku!”

 _Liberating?_ Rey's boot lands into something soft. Dead, brown eyes stare up at her. Around them, more corpses lie—bodies crumpled, dark pools of red staining the sand. Some of their familiar faces are open in surprise, eyes and mouths blown wide. Evin—the town ration maker, his daughter of eight years, lying still in his arms. Terra, an Omega of seventeen from the breeding house, is crumpled, hands blown off. And some are as young as babies, mere months old, eyes shut forever, skin as white as a trooper's uniform. How can liberation be earned with the blood of children? _What_ liberation?

Gloved hands envelop her wrists. Rey struggles against them, the instinct immediate. In front of her, troopers scoop up Bee; he thrashes and screams. Finn shouts his name but keeps running. The world moves slowly, noise far away and so close all at once. Fluid drips down Rey’s thighs, her blood echoing in sync with the guns. 

“That’s her.” _Plutt._ He spins in orange and yellow. The stars—she can’t see the stars; they drown in smoke.

“You will be well compensated,” a mechanical voice says coldly.

Rey collapses to the ground and wretches again, ash and sand rolling around her tongue. When she comes up for air, black smothers her vision. _Him._ The man that drips in night. A mask covers his face, obscures his eyes. _Rey… Rey…_ the voice calls sweetly in her mind. His body is covered in a cloak and a ribbed, long-sleeved tunic, combat boots firm on the sand. 

Gloved hands caress her face, but these are different—tender, gentle. He—the man of night—brushes wisps of hair behind her ears, a contradiction to the mask of metal shielding his head. Underneath, he hums with energy and life. 

_You._ The word beats through him, through her. _You._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Thoughts, praise, constructive criticism? Leave a comment below or contact/follow me on Tumblr: [theaberrantwritergirl](https://theaberrantwritergirl.tumblr.com/). I have a few things in mind for this fic, and I can't wait to write them! Hopefully my updates will be on a more frequent schedule. I'm currently revising a project for original fiction, so this one is my "fun" story when I need a break!
> 
> Special thank you to my beta reader, [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/pseuds/RushRush4DReylo). 
> 
> Come join us at Reylo Creatives on Discord—a community for writers and artists to talk about their craft, share their art, and work alongside other creatives to increase productivity in a positive, accepting environment.


	3. Goddess of the Infant World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __  
> She swims in the darkness, the emotions. Some she has expected—anger, hatred—but as she digs deeper, they bloom into others, tiny desert flowers. Intrigue. Euphoria. Possessiveness. Fear? So much fear. It holds her down by the throat, making her gasp and beg for air.
> 
> _But the emotions aren’t hers.  
> _  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But there came one, who with a kindred hand  
> Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low  
> With reverence, though to one who knew it not.  
> She was a **Goddess of the infant world** ;
> 
> — _Hyperion_ by John Keats
> 
> **Warnings: Brief mention of rape in dialogue. Kidnapping. Interrogation scene re-written from TFA novelization.** Though no rape will occur to Rey, as the tags state, this is a dark fic. Take care of yourself.

Images dance.  _ Fire. Blood. Screams. _ Rey’s eyes snap open. 

She's lying upright, on a rigid platform of sorts. The room is dim—faintly lit near the door. Metal, dark and modern, encases the walls. So much metal. Black and cold. A prison. She wants to scream and thrash, but her throat burns and restraints pin her wrists to the platform. 

The man of night watches her from behind his mask of metal, unspeaking, unmoving. The last things she remembers are his hands on her face, the softness of his gloves, the sweet whisper of her name, though she knows he didn’t speak. Even now, it echoes faintly: _ Rey… Rey…  _

_ The confrontation. Their capture. Bee.  _

“Where am I?” she asks breathlessly. 

He tilts his head to the side. “Where do you presume?” The mechanical voice is gentle despite the mask, like whispering confessions to a lover under a night full of stars. “You’re a guest on my ship.”

“And do you kidnap all of your guests and restrain them to a chair?”

She imagines that he’s smiling behind the mask—she feels the pressure on her own cheeks. 

“Only ones I like,” he says. 

“And who are you?” 

“You know.” 

_ Kylo Ren. _ The name that women in Jakku fear. The Supreme Leader’s punishing hand. She pushes down the urge to cry or scream, keeping her mouth shut. 

With calculated ease, he glides to her, robes swaying, boots tapping on the dark floor. 

Rey winces, braces herself for a blow; instead, he carefully unfastens the restraints across her wrists. Two snaps and her hands are freed. She rubs at her raw wrists, refusing to look at him, thank him, or acknowledge him in any way.

“Where’s Bee?”

A mechanical chuckle. “You mean BB8? The child that betrayed the integrity of the First Order?”

“Integrity?” She laughs scornfully, grits her teeth. “You kidnap children, torture them, put babies in the bellies of girls as young as eleven.  _ Fuck _ you and your integrity.”

“You don’t approve of our methods? Do you, then, approve of children being born missing limbs, eyes, hearts? Mental disabilities? Dying of cancer as young as a few months old? You exist because of  _ us.  _ Do you not know how harshly the bombs changed our DNA? How it decimated life, turned most of our world into a wasteland?”

Her eyes dart to the dark glass-covered holes meant to represent his. “The world did indeed end in fire, and we inherited its charred remains,” she recites. The first time she’s ever said it out loud, to a living person. “You argue the ethics of humanity, yet you hide your face. You hunted me like an animal. You’re nothing more than a creature in a mask.”

His hands snap to the back of his head, the movement calculated, fluid. With a hiss, the mask comes undone. He lifts it over his head. 

Black, thick hair covering his ears. Even blacker eyes framed in a long face. He isn’t remarkable in the usual ways she noticed in men from Jakku. Like his face and hair, his nose is also long, sloped. He straightens his back, one corner of his mouth raised, as if he has  _ hoped  _ for her comment. On his neck is a red-moon shaped mark, like a connecting puzzle piece, larger than an Omega’s.  _ Alpha.  _

If she had passed him on the streets of Jakku, he would have been unremarkable, but here, with his intense eyes locked on hers, her blood races, wetness trickling from her cunt.  _ That  _ gaze. No one has ever looked at her this way. 

“Is it really true that you’re an  _ Other?”  _ he asks sardonically, moving closer to her face. He breathes in and out, breath fanning her neck, making her dizzy. “I don’t think so.”

“I haven’t presented,” she replies. She intends it to come out confident, but her voice shakes. 

“You haven’t?” He breathes in deeper, fingers caressing her mark. “I can’t tell. What do I smell like, Omega? How do I make you feel?”

Against every desire to spit in his face, she takes a gulp of air. At first, she smells leather and the musky, mass-produced charcoal soap made in Exegol. But beneath it… Her head swims; tears well up in her eyes. She can  _ taste _ him, like sugared rations or cool water straight from the well. Darkness. Fire. Iron. Her blood flares. She regards him; he regards her, eyes fluttering across her face, to her lips. Their mouths hang open. She swims in the darkness, the emotions. Some she has expected—anger, hatred—but as she digs deeper, they bloom into others, tiny desert flowers. Intrigue. Euphoria. Possessiveness.  _ Fear? _ So much fear. It holds her down by the throat, making her gasp and beg for air. 

But the emotions aren’t hers. 

She snaps her head back, hitting the metal platform. Across from her, he pants. Hard. 

“You’re afraid,” she whispers in awe. “That you will never be as strong as…” The words beg to be released. “Lord Vader? That your empire will crash around you like the bombs that destroyed the Before. That you will never create a bloodline stronger than he did.” Yes, she can see them clearly now—the images in her head, the fire and the blood. White labs and metal restraints. The screams. 

Stunned, he stumbles backward, his eye twitching, breath shallow. 

Her eyes widen—there’s something more. “Ben Solo. That’s your true name, isn’t it?” She doesn’t know what it means, but the effect it has on him the second it falls from her lips leaves her legs shaking. His face drains of all color, and his eyes dart away. The  _ power _ she holds over him. 

A few moments pass before he laughs awkwardly. But the sound abruptly transforms into anger, almost a growl. Teeth gritted, he slams on his helmet. With another _hiss,_ it locks back into place, and he stalks out of the room.

* * *

She doesn’t see him again for hours. Or is it days? Someone brings her food, slips it under the door while she sleeps on the metal ground. She expects the rations to be cold and meager, but they warm her belly, sweeter than the ones on Jakku. Rey finishes every bite, licking her fingers. 

However, the food does nothing to stop the pain that tears through her body. Her pants are drenched with the same sticky fluid, and her head and gland throb, cunt clenching—worse than any pain she’s ever known before. Kylo—Ben—said it:  _ Omega.  _ The food, that sweet food, comes back up, splattering green against the black floor.  _ Omega.  _

In the midst of a cramp, the door slides open. Two people in black coats, their faces shrouded by cloth masks, enter and strap her to the platform. She stares up at the ceiling, thrashing weakly, her fight drained by fever. A pinch. “For the pain,” one says. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.”

She does. The spasms in her cunt fade, and she floats in the gray. She dreams of his hands exploring her body, his cock punishing her, tying them together for hours and hours as he pours his seed into her. Fills her until she’s swollen with his child. He finds her there—crumpled against the platform, moaning and thrusting her hips. The mask of metal and his long robs have vanished. Vaguely, she feels his arms wrap around her back, lifting her up. Even through the numbness of the medicine, touching him makes her mind flash in colors and sounds, makes her tongue taste iron again.  _ Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.  _

“Where are you taking me?” she chokes out, the halls of the ship sweeping with the lights. “Where… is Bee? Please, is he safe?”

Ben doesn’t answer her until her body meets softness. A bed. She has never slept in a bed, or at least none that she remembers. “He’s fine,” he murmurs. “I’ll bring him to you once your heat has finished.”

_ Heat.  _ She’s in  _ heat. _ “Please,” she pants uncontrollably, not knowing why. “I need you inside of me.  _ Please.”  _ It’s like he’s taken her tongue. None of the words are her own.  _ Other Rey _ screams, lost in the prison of her mind. 

He pauses above her, nostrils flaring, seeming to savor her smell with each inhale. He touches her cheek, flesh on flesh, no gloves. His thumb glides in circles across hers, moving to her gland. “You…” His voice. It’s  _ that  _ voice. His finger moves lower, teasing at the rim of her baggy pants. “Rey.”

“Please…  _ Ben.” _

Ben goes rigid, like the first time she said his name, and jumps up. “Ben Solo is  _ dead. _ ” He spits the last word like venom and leaves her again.

Nevertheless, in her delirium, Ben attends to her—giving her food, water, and medicine. But he doesn’t, or won’t, undress or bathe her despite how much she begs. For that, he sends for medics and leaves the room. The world blurs, her mind spinning with only two things: to be fucked and filled. Fucked and filled. 

When he lies beside her at night, she begs him and begs him, like she’s his bloody _whore,_ but he doesn’t speak to her again. How can he ignore it? _Take me. Take me. Take me._ Her cunt spasms through the pain medication, imagining his cock buried deep within her, up to the hilt. He would pound into her, make the world spin and spin, as he emptied inside her. How can he not feel it? Not see it? The images of the brothel burn in her mind, Jessika under the trooper with wavy brown hair, his dick punishing her, making her his. Rey has never known a man before, but she’s seen Omegas on Reckoning Day—how they spread their legs wide, beg to be _filled_ with raspy voices.

The delirium fades slowly with her pleas. She watches the sun rise and slip from the only window in the room, the desert stretching endlessly into the horizon. The sun going down, the sun going up. How long has she watched it cycle on Jakku? Like the constancy of the sun, she has always believed she was an  _ Other. _ But with the slick between her legs only trickling slowly now and her mind returning, the foolishness of her belief makes tears slip down her cheeks. Kidnapped by the First Order and  _ begging _ to be fucked by  _ Kylo Ren. _ What has she done?

Ben finds her there, sitting by the window. Dinner. A smell like nothing else. Foreign substances coat the tray—foods she has only heard off at the Knowledge House. It also has green, spongy rations in one section off to the side, but the portions include a white meat and a yellow vegetable of sorts.

“Chicken and squash,” Ben says, setting the tray on the table by the window near her chair. “But there are still rations if your body rejects it.”

Her eyes fill with tears. The credits it would have cost to make this—the vegetables produced in a greenhouse, the chicken in a sheltered animal farm. “Why did you do this?” she mumbles. 

“Your heat is dissipating,” he states, not truly answering her question. “I can only faintly smell you now. You should be able to keep most of this down.”

She grabs the cutlery from the tray, slowly cutting into the meat. When it hits her tongue, oh god, she could die of hunger and thirst, baking under the sun, just to taste it. Are these herbs? It’s tangy and light, a dash of heat. 

The knife in her hand. She could drive it into his gut, make him pay for kidnapping her and Bee. But when she meets his intense, pleading eyes, every thought of revenge dissipates. No longer under the spell of heat, she feels him fully again, his thoughts, his hunger. For  _ her.  _

_ What  _ is this? 

His eyes seem to echo the same question. She can feel him, his expressions and emotions, when his eyes search hers—the movement.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, instead. “You could do whatever you want with me.”

Ben’s jaw ticks. “I could.” He shakes his head, like he’s thought of it and dismissed it before. “Is it satisfactory?”

“Mm.”

“I have a surprise for you, if you’re feeling better.”

A few seconds pass before she sees him—blond hair and a crooked-tooth smile—as he passes through the sliding door with two troopers trailing behind. 

“Bee!” she shouts, abandoning her food and running to him. He wraps his scraggly arms around her, squeezing. 

“Have they fed you?” Rey examines his skin, turning his limbs over like a mother at the breeding house would after the children would play in the dirt. “Have you slept?” His head has healed to a light scab. 

He nods eagerly. “Kylo gave me a big room with my own bed and not just rations but food! I never want to leave.”

Ben rests his thumb against his own lips. “You don’t have to.”

“You really think we’ll stay… with you?” Rey asks, standing in front of Bee protectively. “After you kidnapped us? You’re insane.” 

“Weren’t you begging for my children twelve hours ago?” He stands, stone-faced, Kylo Ren in full control, like when she first confronted him in the interrogation room. His emotions flow through her. She wants to block them out, but they linger and push. Indignation. Self-righteousness. 

“You think  _ you’ve _ helped  _ me,”  _ she whispers in astonishment. 

“Before me, what did you have to look forward to, Rey? Dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert? Labeled an  _ Other  _ your entire life and sold to a brothel? An organ to be used? I’ve given you  _ everything.” _

Rey grits her teeth. “At least I don’t hide behind a mask and a name that isn’t even mine.”

“You would do well to learn your place, Omega,” he states, inching closer until he towers above her. “You’ve upgraded, surely, but you have so much to learn.”

“You don’t frighten me.”

“Does being raped by twenty Alphas in an alleyway frighten you?”

Rey covers Bee’s ears. “Hold your tongue!”

“Does it? It should. That’s what happens to Omegas that aren’t mated, and you know it. You’ve seen it in Jakku. Breeding houses provide shelter to unmated, orphaned Omegas, and  _ that’s  _ what you are now. An Omega. ‘To be fucked and filled’—isn’t that what you begged me to do? The legacy, yes, my grandfather, Lord Vader, created.” His eyes bleed into hers. “And I will finish what he started.”

“At what cost?”

“You have few options—stay with me when we reach Exegol and continue to watch over Bee. Or, I let you go, leave you to the streets, and Bee will be put back into the Alpha testing program.”

“What do you want from me?”

Ben gestures toward the troopers. “Take the boy back to his quarters.” 

Bee hugs Rey one more time before letting himself be led out of the room, asking to see her for breakfast tomorrow, to which Ben agrees, his nod quick and solider-like. 

Ben glides into a metal chair near the bed, gesturing for her to follow. “Do you believe in fated bonds?” he asks when she sits next to him. 

Jakku. Evin, the town ration maker with his wife, Ora. Dead. Daughter, dead. Evin had sworn they’d been fated, but it didn’t matter when the bombs came. Dead, all the same. “No,” she replies confidently. “Alphas and Omegas… it matters little in the end.”

_ Does it?  _

His presence. Dark, calm. Gentle.

_ But we aren’t mated,  _ she says in her mind.  _ Fated bonds aren’t like this. _ Then, out loud, “How is this possible?”

“The bloodline of my grandfather,” Ben says instantly. “What he experimented with.” He places a hand on hers and squeezes. She feels it from two sides—the grip of his fingers, what it’s like to wrap around hers. “You. You have no place in this story, and yet…” His hand moves up her arm, brushing the hairs, making them stand. “You’re here. Real. I’ve waited for you.”

“What…” She swallows, trying to force the words out. How can she speak with his touch, his emotions mixing with hers? “What do you want from me?” She imagines herself underneath him again as his fingertips swirl between her legs and he pants her name.  _ Rey… Rey…  _

He almost shudders. “Nothing like that.”

The Omega in her mind screams with displeasure.  _ Am I not good enough, Alpha? _

Ben abruptly pulls his hand back. “I want you to be at my side. We can build a new empire, one with no death.”

“An empire?” The laughter, the streets paved and glowing. People living past forty, fifty,  _ sixty.  _ Their faces are lined with wrinkles.  _ Elderly.  _ Their grandchildren in their laps, freckles and curly hair. They grow younger, the saggy in their eyes becoming taunt again, gray turning to black or brown or blond. 

_ How? _

“DNA. Genetic engineering. The more experiments I run, the clearer it becomes. But I’ve never tested a fated bond. Not this type. I never thought it existed. I thought I was the only one.”

“What do you mean?” She pushes but meets a wall, his mind locked. It rises each time she tries to jump over it. Unwavering. He’s hiding  _ something,  _ but what proof does she have? 

“I need you to advise me.” He holds out a hand. “Join me. This could be the key to everything—every pain you’ve ever felt, every death you’ve ever seen. Think of it. Watch it vanish. I can do that.  _ We  _ could do that.”

Tentatively, she reaches for his hand. The conviction in his eyes, voice, and mind. “If you want this…” She hovers over his open palm, leans in, so close she can feel his heartbeat pulsing in his gland.  _ Beat. _ “Earn it.”  _ Beat.  _

His face contorts. His eyes narrow, lips raised in a sneer. Anger. She wants to smash his face in, lick the blood as it trickles from his nose.

He rips his mind away again and the urge to hurt him with it. No light or darkness but cold and blank. His jaw relaxes, lips curling into a smile. “Your training begins tomorrow, Omega. Be ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, for reading. This has been a great break from revising for original fiction, so thank you all for being on this crazy ride with me. 
> 
> I'm so happy this story made the list for Reylo Hidden Gems! It truly means a lot to me. The fandom can be a lonely place. 
> 
> Thank you to [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/pseuds/RushRush4DReylo) for beta reading this! We invite each other to our drafts to maintain accountability, and she couldn't help but read it before it was even finished, so that's a huge compliment! Please check out her stories; I also beta for her. 
> 
> Thoughts, praise, constructive criticism? Leave a comment below or contact/follow me on Tumblr: [theaberrantwritergirl](https://theaberrantwritergirl.tumblr.com/). Alternatively, come join our Discord group for Reylo writers and artists! You can contact me on Twitter: [Reylo Creatives](https://twitter.com/CreativesReylo) (@CreativesReylo).


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